


hit me baby one more time

by CatchAsCatchCan



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: 5+1 Things, Hockey Fights, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, and the inherent drama of being a rookie, but it's 6, ice packs as a plot motif, inspired by joel farabee getting the shit kicked out of him twice in one week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-07
Updated: 2020-01-07
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:30:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22153183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatchAsCatchCan/pseuds/CatchAsCatchCan
Summary: Foligno has nine years, three inches, and sixty pounds on Joel. When Joel throws his gloves to the side and squares off, Morgan mentally puts his head in his hands. He's pretty sure he can hear Claude sigh all the way over on the bench.Or, six times Joel Farabee gets in a fight, and one time he doesn’t
Relationships: Joel Farabee/Morgan Frost
Comments: 15
Kudos: 201





	hit me baby one more time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [subwaycars](https://archiveofourown.org/users/subwaycars/gifts).

> For KT, because literally a month ago you said something about a 5+1 fic about Bees getting into fights, which I then proceeded to think about every day after, also because you're wonderful
> 
> The first two fights are real! The other fights and games are made up! Some of these aren't really fights and that's okay! Reality can be whatever I want, and what I want is to see someone body Mark Borowiecki at center ice
> 
> (Edit Jan 8: damn it i can't believe Borowiecki turned out to be a really good guy, thanks for being an ally dude! i was just mad about the TK hit)

**1\. Jean-Gabriel Pageau**

Joel picks his first ever NHL fight less than a minute into a game against Ottawa, of all teams. 

Morgan watches from the bench as his former rookie camp roommate grabs Pageau’s jersey, attempts to land a punch, and then … spins in a circle while both of them just sort of grapple. There’s limited success on both sides. 

The linesmen eventually step in and pry them apart, while the team dutifully taps their sticks against the boards. Joel looks like wet cat, furiously wrenching off his helmet as he slides into the penalty box alongside Jake. 

Joel’s panting and shaking out his hands, while Jake leans out to yell something at a linesman. A few people over on the bench, Travis snorts, then tries to cover it up with a cough when G reaches over and slaps at his shoulder. 

Joel serves his penalty sullenly. The new haircut kind of works for him, Morgan thinks absently, then banishes that away to the deep dark recesses of his brain. 

A long period later, they finally make it to the locker room, only for Joel to be hit with a wave of shouts and chirps. 

“Farabee, you goon!” Travis yells, vaulting over Ghost’s legs where he’s stretching. He cackles while rubbing a noogie into Joel’s hair, telling him how proud he is. He has to stand on his toes to reach.

“Watch it,” Ghost bites out, but he’s grinning and turning towards Joel too. “Bringing back the Broad Street Bullies, my man!” 

Jake and Coots join the havoc, yelling an incomprehensible combination of praise and advice. “Next time, aim for the neck,” Jake shouts. 

Someone else across the room yells, “Jake, no, what the fuck!” Jake just shrugs while Claude snickers and says nothing. 

Joel is still standing by the door, cheeks red and hands fidgeting. He’s smiling, but also sort of glancing around like he’s not sure who to respond to. 

Morgan reaches over and slaps him on the back as he goes to sit down. Joel jerks his head around and blinks at him for a moment, then blushes even deeper. 

Interesting.

* * *

**2\. Marcus Foligno**

Foligno has nine years, three inches, and sixty pounds on Joel. When Joel throws his gloves to the side and squares off, Morgan mentally puts his head in his hands. He's pretty sure he can hear Claude sigh all the way over on the bench.

The fight, and Morgan thinks he’s being very generous calling it a fight, lasts about fifteen seconds. Foligno skates away completely unscathed, while Joel just sort of staggers off the ice. There’s only about a minute left to go, but by the time Morgan makes it back to the locker room, Joel isn’t there. Probably with a trainer.

Joel does eventually make it back to the bench in time for the third period, but he mostly keeps to himself. He’s quiet in the locker room after the game, but they also just lost by three to the Minnesota goddamned Wild, so pretty much everyone is quiet. 

After, Morgan drives himself back to his hotel, showers again, eats the last bit of takeout left in his tiny hotel fridge, and resolves to go check on Joel. Just in the name of rookie solidarity. 

Joel actually has his own apartment. It’s small, but it’s in the same building as Stewie, because Joel might want to live alone, but he also doesn’t look like he knows how to do his own laundry. When he got his housing letter after his tenth game, every veteran cheerfully told him that he was going to have to pick one of them to live within shouting distance of. 

Morgan opens the door without knocking, because Joel has no self-preservation instinct and never locks it. He finds Joel sitting on the couch, staring at the wall. There are no lights on in the living room other than the television, which is silently airing post-game footage. The atmosphere is so cold it makes Morgan shiver involuntarily. 

Morgan flicks on the hallway light and toes off his shoes right inside the entryway, just like his old billet family taught him to do. Taking a deep breath, he makes his way towards the living room. 

“Hey, bud,” he says, approaching cautiously, like Joel is some wild animal and not his sort-of friend. He perches himself on the end of the couch. Joel barely even twitches, but his ragged breathing evens out a little bit. 

They sit in silence for a minute, but Joel finally interrupts just as Morgan opens his mouth again. "I embarrassed myself," Joel chokes out, upset. His voice almost breaks on the last syllable and he squeezes his eyes shut. 

"You were protecting a teammate," Morgan says, and scoots over to be closer to him so that their knees knock together. 

Joel snorts. "I got my ass kicked.” 

"Well, you did also do that," Morgan says, not unkindly. He won’t lie, because Joel might hate being embarrassed, but he hates being pitied even more. It's nicer than what Morgan could say, which is that Foligno put Joel's ass through a meat grinder on live television. 

"You know the team won't see it like that," he continues. "You were sticking up for one of your own." He wants to reach over and stop Joel’s restlessly bouncing leg, but he decides that might be a little much. 

"Still looked stupid," Joel says, but he seems calmer. Joel still hasn’t looked at him, but at least his eyes are open now. 

"You always look stupid," Morgan says, but he's smiling and Joel is smiling too. 

"Shut the fuck up, Snowman," he says, but when he turns to look at Morgan for the first time, there’s a huge bruise blooming down the side of his neck and chest where he got punched a few too many times.

"Jesus Christ!" Morgan says, and jumps up. "Why the fuck don't you have ice on that!" 

He's up and halfway to the freezer when Joel calls from the living room, "I don't know how to turn on the ice machine."

"You don't—" 

"I don't have ice because I don't know how to turn on my ice machine." 

There’s a half second of silence before Morgan whirls right back around and marches into the living room. "Okay, then you're coming with me."

“What?” Joel jolts and blinks a few times like he didn’t quite hear correctly. 

“I said, you’re coming back with me.” Morgan says, more emphatic this time. There are multiple hand motions involved. 

"Frosty, you live in a hotel,” Joel says, deadpan. 

"Yeah, and that hotel has a working ice machine, dumbass," Morgan says, already tugging on Joel's shirt. "C'mon, I'm not leaving you here to suffer in silence. You're not that macho."

Morgan widens his eyes at him and pouts a little. Sue him, okay, he knows how effective those eyes can be. 

“Oh God,” Joel groans, “fine. Stop looking at me like that.”

Joel allows himself to be pulled up, though he shrugs off Morgan’s hand to pull on a jacket and a truly ugly pair of orange tennis shoes. He shoves his hands into his jacket pockets, looking mulishly over at Morgan. In return, Morgan reaches out and pulls Joel’s hood up over his head, while Joel sputters. 

“Hey!” 

“Hey, what? I don’t want your neighbors to think I beat you up in a back alley.”

Joel clams up and stomps out into the hall behind Morgan. The drive to the hotel is mostly silent, broken by the occasional horn blare and tire screech that is just the soundtrack to New Jersey roads. 

Morgan sings along to the elevator music under his breath. It’s something by Britney. There’s a slight coughing sound next to him, and he glances over to see Joel looking away quickly, ears red. 

“What?”

“Nothing, dude,” Joel says, but it sounds like he has more on his mind, so Morgan waits him out. “It’s just, you don’t have to do this, you know. You don’t have to take care of me or some shit, I’m fine.”

Morgan blinks at him, but just as he’s about to answer, the elevator doors slide open with a loud noise. He sheppards them into his tiny hotel room, then pushes Joel towards the bed and glares at him until he actually sits down with a little huff. Then, he goes to get some goddamned ice. 

It takes him way longer to find the ice machine than he had anticipated. Ten minutes later, he’s sliding his keycard back in the door and is preparing to announce his presence to the room at large when he finally notices Joel, passed out asleep on his bed. 

Morgan stares at him, a little bit. He looks more relaxed like this, but his shoulders are still tense, even in sleep. His mouth is wide open in a spectacularly unattractive way. 

His eyelashes flutter a bit, and Morgan lunges forward to turn off the overhead lights before he can wake up.

Slowly, he creeps forward and sets down the bucket of ice in the mostly empty minifridge. Hopefully it’ll keep until tomorrow morning, when Joel wakes up needing it. As quietly as he can, he tiptoes over to his suitcase, pulls out a bottle of ibuprofen, and sets it on the bedside table next to Joel along with some tap water in one of those shitty plastic hotel cups. It’s not much in the way of bedside manner, but it’s what he’s got. 

Morgan changes into pajamas, pulls the scratchy spare blanket out of the closet, and goes to sleep on the hotel couch. It’ll probably hurt his neck in the morning, but there’s no game tomorrow and more than enough hotel ice to go around. 

In the morning, Joel apologizes for about fifteen straight minutes, before Morgan lobs a pillow at his head and calmly tells him to shut the fuck up.

“You’re my friend, dude, relax,” he says, shrugging like it’s nothing. 

Joel kind of flushes at that, then screws up his face. “Fine, but I owe you.” 

Morgan laughs. “Sure, next time I get my ass handed to me, you can make sure I don’t rot in my hotel room.”

Joel nods very seriously. “It’s a deal.” 

They’re a little inseparable, after that.

* * *

**3\. Claude Giroux**

After the suspension news breaks, Claude hits Joel with the “I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed.” Then, it turns out Claude probably really is mad, because he stomps back out on the ice and proceeds to score six straight breakaway scrimmage goals. 

“Christ, G,” Carter calls from the crease.

“Save some for the rest of us,” someone else yells. Claude huffs out a reluctant laugh and the mood lightens for the first time in a long while. When Morgan leaves the ice, he’s surprised to feel something other than complete exhaustion. 

Morgan watches out of the corner of his eye as Joel hesitantly pulls G away and into a side room. G’s eyebrows are still drawn, but he seems far less murderous than an hour before. This bodes well for Joel surviving this conversation, which is good because the team really can’t afford to call up anyone else. At this rate, the Phantoms might simply fold for lack of players. 

Morgan finds reasons to hang around the locker room for a few minutes while everyone else trickles out. As he sets about re-taping his stick for the fourth time, TK shoots him a knowing look before he’s gone as well.

Suddenly, the locker room is empty of everyone except for himself. Morgan follows the sound of muffled voices and makes his way quietly down the hall until he’s right outside a set of closed doors. 

“—bad timing, I know,” he hears Joel saying. His voice is a little shaky. The room is quiet for a few seconds, before Claude laughs a little. 

“Kid, you’re not the first one of us to get suspended and you’re not going to be the last. It’s a shitty ruling with fuck-awful timing, but God knows I’ve done the same.” 

Joel takes a huge, shaky breath. “I’m really—”

“You’re sorry,” Claude interrupts. “I know. It’s not fine, and I won’t lie and say it is, but stop apologizing.”

There’s silence from behind the door, but Morgan can picture Joel nodding vigorously. Claude laughs again, this time sounding much more genuine. 

“Look, Joel. You’re nineteen and dumb as shit.” Joel sputters, but Claude ignores him. “We all were, we just learned from it.”

Then there’s a pause, and Claude says, considering, “Well, maybe not Jake.”

Claude says something else, inaudible, and then the door is swinging open before Morgan has a chance to scramble away. Claude just raises a single eyebrow at him before continuing down the hall and back into the locker room.

Morgan reopens the door hesitantly. His worst fears are confirmed when he finds Joel sitting in a chair, head in his hands and shoulders shaking. 

“Uh, Bees?” Morgan says, stepping closer. God, he really doesn’t know what to do with a crying teammate. “Are you okay?” Morgan crouches down to his eye level and peers between his crossed arms. “Joel?” 

He reaches out to put his hand on Joel’s shoulder, but he lets his hand drop when Joel lifts his head up. He’s laughing silently. 

“_Woah_,” Morgan says, “Dude.” 

Joel swipes at his eyes with his hands, still laughing. Morgan has no idea what’s going on here.

“Uh, you okay, bud?” 

Finally, Joel gasps out, “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. It’s just—” and then he breaks down laughing again. Morgan realizes he’s smiling, despite himself. 

Joel composes himself. “This is so fucking weird, bro. We spent our whole lives working to get here and, like, so much of it is this bullshit and now G is acting like my dad, and I live alone and I can’t even do my own laundry.” He says all of this in one breath, and then has to take a sort of gasp to get out the last few words. 

Morgan stares at him for a minute, then sits down heavily on the ground next to him. He feels the urge to put his head in his hands too. “I’m, like, living in a hotel,” he says. “I’ve had so many hotel breakfasts, dude. I think if I see another powered egg, I might die.” 

This sets Joel off again. “I’m an adult, Snowman! We’re adults! You’re, like, twenty! We’re supposed to have our lives together and I don’t even have a driver’s license.” 

Morgan starts giggling, and then he really does bury his face in his palms. “I am! I’m an adult! What the hell.” 

Joel leans down to grab his wrists and pulls his hands away from his face. “No, no, look at me, like, dude, I have no idea what I’m doing. I made the show and then got suspended for three games! Three, not even Malkin gets three! What the fuck am I _doing_?”

Morgan shakes his head fervently. “I just figured out how to make a frozen pizza,” he says, before thunking his head back against the wall. “I told someone in a real interview that I learned how to make frozen pizza. Last week I got so lost driving to the arena that if I hadn’t left early I would have missed the fucking game.” 

Joel sort of collapses forward, and then they’re just holding each other up from where Joel’s still got his hands around Morgan’s wrists. They’re both wheezing with laughter, teetering on the verge of hysterical. 

Later, once they’ve calmed down, Joel says, real quiet, “I’m glad you’re here with me.”

Morgan can only nod.

* * *

**4\. Chuck Fletcher**

Morgan knew he was going to get sent back down. It a feeling in the pit of his stomach, like in high school when he knew he failed a test before he got the grade back. Just a constant, persistent feeling of nervous wrongness. 

It happens when they’re on the road. Fletcher calls him in his San Jose hotel room while Joel is in the shower getting ready for morning skate. The call only lasts a few minutes, but the demotion felt too inevitable to be a real surprise. He’s only able to take a few shuddering breaths before Joel stumbles out of the bathroom, dressed but still half asleep. 

“Want me to wait for you?” he asks, but Morgan distantly assures him that he'll be down in a minute. He's impressed by how steady his voice is. 

He packs quickly, shoving everything into his bag. His hands are shaking, just a little bit. He’d had such a good start. He doesn’t want to run into any of them in the lobby, especially not Joel. 

He takes the back exit out of the hotel. 

Now that he’s alone, the airport seems so much bigger. Fletcher had sent him a ticket back to Allentown, and it’s an eight hour trip with a one hour layover in Seattle. It had seemed like a much shorter flight when he had been surrounded by the team. The team, now. Not really his team, he supposes.

His phone keeps alerting him to new messages. He keeps ignoring them. He’ll look at them, just— Not right now. 

Morgan doesn’t realize until he’s in the air that he never got a chance to say goodbye to any of them. Joel is going to come back to an empty hotel room. Morgan knows that he’s probably already heard, that a good portion of the messages flooding his phone are his, but still. It feels cold. 

_I’m glad you’re here with me_, he had said. Morgan kind of feels like he let him down. He squeezes his eyes shut and turns his phone on airplane mode. 

He lands in Seattle a few hours later. He doesn’t feel better, but he does feel more settled. Not like he’s about to start crying in front of a whole commercial jet’s worth of people. Everyone’s probably just getting out of practice, which means it’s probably safe to turn his phone back on. 

Morgan’s phone rings thirty seconds later. He forgot Joel’s absolute inability to let an issue drop. 

He accepts the call. 

“I’ll fucking kill him, dude,” Joel says immediately, voice static-y over the line. “Just ask me and I’ll do it.”

Despite himself, despite everything, Morgan laughs. Joel can always make him laugh.

“Don’t,” he says, sitting down heavily in the chair by his next departure gate. “Can’t have them lose their superstar.”

“I’m not their super anything,” Joel declares. Morgan can perfectly picture the way he’s probably waving his hands around in the air. “Sending you down was fucking stupid, and Fletcher is an idiot.” 

Morgan chokes on air. “Dude! You’re gonna get sent down too, if you keep talking like that.” 

Joel is silent for a second. Morgan squeezes his eyes shut. “You didn’t.” 

Joel huffs out a laugh. “No, I didn’t—”

“Thank god!”

“—But only because G stopped me before I could get to his hotel room.”

Morgan pulls the phone away from his ear and presses it into his chest, the way his mom does when his dad says something stupid.

“Jesus Christ,” he breathes out. This boy. “Joel Farabee. Don’t you dare fight your fucking GM. I can’t believe I have to say that.” 

“I won’t!” he protests. Morgan rolls his eyes, even though Joel can’t see. 

“You tried to!”

“Well, I won’t now, okay?” he says, but he’s laughing. “But, hey, Frosty? Get back here soon, dude.” 

He doesn’t say _I’ll miss you_, but it’s implied. 

“I will,” Morgan says. He figures he doesn’t really need to say anything more. Joel knows.

* * *

**5\. Nic Aube-Kubel**

Morgan goes back to Allentown, to his tiny house with Isaac and Matty. Matty picks him up at the airport, and it feels nice to shit talk the Flyers front office for a little while. Someone ships him his stuff from his hotel room, and he briefly feels bad for how much of a mess he had left it. 

He goes to the All Star Game, takes approximately a million stupid hooking penalties, and mostly doesn’t know what to do with all his free time now that games are so much less frequent. 

He starts a couple of books that Isaac left around the house, but doesn’t finish any of them. He tries to teach himself to make bread, which mostly doesn’t go well but does set off the fire alarm so many times that Matty threatens to kick him out of the house. Mostly, he watches a lot of hockey and bad reality television. And texts Joel. A lot. 

Usually it’s about inane things that Joel sees in other cities. He’s fond of the California road trips, which Morgan cheerfully tells him is stupid, because he’s American and can go to Los Angeles literally any time he wants to. 

NAK gets called up a few days after he gets sent down, and Morgan attempts to bury any lingering bitterness under genuine happiness for his friend. It doesn’t hurt that Nic regularly sends him videos of Joel doing the dumbest possible shit. 

_come get your boy_, Nic captions a video of Joel shoving an entire cheeseburger into his mouth, only to have it fall apart entirely all over him. Nic hands him one single napkin before Joel realizes he’s being filmed and lets out what can only be described as a shriek, then the video ends. Morgan laughs so hard he gets a cramp.

_smooth moves_, reads another, a long video of Joel just absolutely trashed at a club somewhere in New Jersey. Turns out, if the team gets drunk enough, they can be persuaded to do karaoke. Sean Couturier has a lovely singing voice. 

And so on, and so on. Morgan is going to owe NAK so many damn favors, if Joel doesn’t kill him first. 

Finally, finally, he gets called up in the middle of February, a week before Valentines Day. He packs his bag in fifteen minutes, but then just ends up at the airport three hours early waiting for his flight to arrive. 

Joel texts him a series of exclamation points, NAK sends him a selfie doing a thumbs up with Joel spilling water on himself in the background, and Claude sends him a very nice message welcoming him back. He saves the picture, thanks Claude, and calls Joel. 

Joel picks up the video chat immediately, sounding out of breath. “Sorry, I’m running from Nic,” he says, and it’s only now that Morgan realizes he’s making his way down a flight of stairs at what looks like only slightly slower than the speed of light. 

“What did you do?” Morgan asks, perplexed. 

Joel just grins, ducks around a corner and squats down behind something. He holds the phone close enough that he can whisper, “You know those spray hoses on kitchen sinks?” 

Morgan nods, then remembers that he’s currently pointed at the sky, and says with trepidation, “Yes?”

“Nic should stop taking embarrassing pictures of me, is all I’m saying,” Joel says, and when he pulls the phone back he looks mulish. 

Morgan blinks at him, then snickers. “Dude, are you hiding behind a dumpster?”

Joel grins, wide and unashamed for once. “Gotta do what it takes to win, dawg,” he says, forgetting to whisper, which turns out to be a terrible choice when NAK appears behind him, soaking wet. 

Joel lets out a high pitched noise and drops the phone. Nic picks it up a second later and says, “Hey Frosty, long time no see! Unfortunately I have to kill your boy. Bye!”

Then, he hangs up unceremoniously before Morgan has a chance to correct him. French bastard.

* * *

**6\. Mark Borowiecki**

They go back to Ottawa and a real, honest to god line brawl breaks out with only a few minutes left in the third. Ottawa, already down by three, flips the puck over the glass and Borowiecki apparently decides to slap a fighting major on top of the delay of game penalty and just call it a day. 

It’s Morgan’s line with Jake and Joel that’s out on the ice. When Borowiecki throws the first punch, Jake bares his teeth and starts swinging with what can only be described as pure glee. 

Borowiecki makes his way to the edge of the brawl and aims a right hook right at Morgan. It almost connects, but Joel throws himself forward and into the mess, landing one solid punch to Borowiecki’s chin before he’s hit right in the mouth by some other Senator. 

Provy yanks Morgan out of the scrum by the scruff of his neck. He’s got a huge hand wrapped around the back of his jersey and pushes him down the ice until he’s clear of most of the line brawl. “I’m only watching out for one of you morons at a time,” Provy growls, before he throws an elbow into the gut of someone trying to grab onto his collar. Fair enough. 

The linesmen and refs are yelling at them, finally breaking up the fight while the arena howls for blood. They get skated en masse to the penalty box, and everyone but Morgan and whichever Senator was guarding him get matching five minute majors. 

As he heads to the bench, Joel grins at him with blood in his teeth. Morgan’s heart jumps, which is annoying because that was honestly kind of gross. 

“Fuck that dude,” Travis says with feeling, once Morgan is back on the bench. “Good for your boy, though. First time he didn’t get his ass kicked.”

Morgan snickers, then blinks. “He's not my boy.”

Travis just looks at him. Well, Morgan supposes, he would know, wouldn’t he. 

After the game, he sits in the stall next to Joel and hands him an ice pack and a wet cloth he got from the medical staff. Joel takes them gratefully and slowly cleans up his split knuckles. 

“Next time maybe let’s not punch someone in the teeth, eh?” Morgan says. 

Joel mutters something that Morgan doesn’t catch. 

“Huh?”

Joel flushes and looks away. “He was trying to hit you, dude,” he says, louder this time. 

Morgan freezes. “What?”

Joel knocks his head against the back of his stall and groans. “Don’t make me say it again, man.”

Morgan waits until Joel picks his head back up, looking at Morgan out of the corner of his eye like he’s a little worried about what he might say. Then, he leans over and knocks their foreheads together. “Thanks,” he says, real quiet. 

“No problem,” Joel says, even quieter.

* * *

**+1. Morgan Frost**

Morgan picks his first ever NHL fight with two minutes left on the clock in a game against Columbus, of all teams.

It’s not pretty and he honestly couldn’t tell you who he even swung at, just that he was getting relentlessly checked all game long and finally got fucking sick of it. At the end of the third, he snaps and throws himself at the guy who had just slammed into him.

His gloves go flying across the ice, and it’s satisfying, but not as satisfying as wrapping his hands around his opponent’s jersey and yanking him forward to land a solid punch to the side of the head. His hand stings, but he doesn’t have time to think about the pain before he’s dodging a fist and twisting around to slam another punch into the man’s shoulder.

It’s not an elegant fight, and it ends with both of them tumbling onto the ice in a heap, but it’s also not a complete loss either. Morgan can hear the whoops from the bench, and he almost gets why Joel does this. 

He stomps off the ice but not before shooting Joel a wide grin. And, they win, of course they do, because it’s the fucking Blue Jackets.

After the game ends, he’s so tired he’s about ready to collapse. He goes back to his hotel and makes it as far as laying face down on to his bed before there’s someone hammering on his door. He yanks it open only to come face to face with Joel, who’s holding what appears on third glance to be a large tupperware full of ice.

“Uh,” he says, casually. “What?”

Joel shakes the tupperware at him. It is indeed full of ice. “Finally got my ice machine to work.”

“I can see that,” Morgan says, then again, “What?”

Joel grins, but it’s a little hesitant. “I said I wouldn’t let you rot in your hotel room.”

Morgan can’t help but laugh. “That was months ago, dude.”

Joel shrugs. “A deal is a deal,” he says, and pushes into the room.

Joel directs Morgan to sit on the edge of his bed, and Morgan is vividly reminded of dragging Joel here months ago, and how he’d pressed ice into the side Joel’s swollen face in the morning, neither of them looking at each other. 

While Morgan kicks his heels, Joel disappears into the bathroom and emerges a minute later to crouch on the ground in front of Morgan. He takes a small towel from the bathroom and carefully wraps it around Morgan’s knuckles to keep the ice from stinging. 

“Claude showed me how to do this after that first fight,” he says, eyes narrowed with focus. Finally, he pats Morgan’s hand and sits back on his heels, pleased. 

Morgan feels something zip through him, and then without thinking, he leans forward and presses his lips against Joel’s cheek. His stubble scrapes against Morgan’s face, and he stays there for a heartbeat before pulling back, smiling a little. 

Joel goes bright red, and stammers out some weird noise before bringing his hand up to touch his cheek. 

“Thanks,” Morgan says, going for nonchalant and missing by a mile. 

“No problem,” Joel says, still a little dazed. Then he reaches up and frames Morgan’s face with his hands. He hesitates for only a split second before he pulls him down into a real kiss. 

When he moves back, Joel says, in a rush, “Please don’t sleep on the couch this time.” 

Morgan falls asleep with Joel's fingers tangled with his, and he wakes up smiling.

**Author's Note:**

> Random untagged Phantoms mentioned only by nickname:  
Matthew Strome, Isaac Ratcliffe
> 
> This is extremely cheesy nonsense, thank you for reading! Honestly, the hardest part of writing this was deciding whether to title it hit me baby one more time or hit me with your best shot
> 
> You can also find me on twitter [@catchascatchcn](https://www.twitter.com/catchascatchcn)!


End file.
